The Indie Video Game Fest is an annual one-day event that brings together gamers, developers, and industry professionals to play, discuss, and celebrate independent video games from the DMV area. 

Explore over 30 independent video games from the DMV area throughout Central Hall on our 1st floor and Creative Arts on our 2nd floor from 11am to 4pm.

Keynote Talk

This year, we are pleased to welcome game writer and narrative designer Emma Kidwell. 

Game developer Emma Kidwell discusses what memoir is, and how making personal games is both a powerful artistic statement and a tool for narrative designers to trust their intuition when designing a story that resonates with people. Emma has worked on many games, such as Civilization VII and Marvel's Midnight Suns, along with several indie projects including Hindsight .

She will be in conversation with award-winning video essayist Jacob Geller. 

Jacob Geller is an award-winning video essayist who examines the intersecting worlds of video games, politics, art, and storytelling. He is also the author of How a Game Lives and upcoming book You're Not Overthinking It. 

Presentation Schedule for the Day

As part of the event, we will host three different presentations about video games in our third-floor Wheeler auditorium.  

• 10:00 am - So you wanna be a game dev? Hosts: Andrea Saravia Pérez, Rick Williams, and Daniel Silber. 
• 11:00 am - Gaming Starts and the main event begins 
• 12:00 pm - Building a Whole New World? Best Inclusive Design Practices in Visual Media with Dr. Sarah Slingluff is a scholar of Islamic art history and video games whose work focuses on design pedagogy to guide developers and educators in creating inclusive, historically grounded games. She has consulted on several titles, most notably Assassin's Creed Mirage. 
• 2:00 pm - Memoir Games with Game developer Emma Kidwell in conversation with award-winning video essayist Jacob Geller. 

Join us for this exciting celebration of indie video games! We can't wait to see you there!

Registration for this event is recommended, but not required.